Roadmap: Mass roll-out of Active Demand programs

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VaasaETT is proud to announce a succesfull completion of the ADVANCED project. VaasaETT in partnership with ENEL, Comillas, Entelios, ERDF, FEEM, Iberdrola, TNO, TNS and RWE has just completed a 2 year R&D project on mass roll-out of active demand programs in Europe.

ADVANCED Project leading the way in developing Active Demand in Europe

VaasaETT was the lead research partner responsible for designing the research methodology of the project. The research was conducted in order to answer key questions on active demand issues presently facing the energy industry in Europe; how to design and manage active demand programs – and what is the impact on the electricity system. Elaborate answers were given to questions on:

– How to assess and tune an active demand program

– How to involve and engage consumers

– What new services does active demand enable

– What opportunities in terms of grid management does active demand facilitate

Based on 2 year’s of research, analysis and field tests elaborate, proven answers to the topics outlined above were given. A set of concrete recommendations was also developed by the project consortium experts in order to pave the way for further progress on active demand in Europe. The recommendations were delivered to the European Commission and will be included in the future EU initiatives on developing the common EU electricity market. The recommendations along with a complete project report is publicly available on the ADVANCED project website.

Active Demand in Europe today – the project context Active Demand (AD) has the potential to contribute to solving the challenges of electricity systems and offers significant benefits to consumers. It is considered one of the largest untapped energy resources in Europe today. A significant barrier to realising this potential, is insufficient consumer engagement and awareness regarding their own energy consumption, as well as the lack of viable, consumer centric AD offerings made around Europe. Few commercial industrial (C&I) or residential consumers are offered viable choices, which could help them participate in the markets through demand response, lower their electricity costs or encourage energy savings. Therefore an understanding of AD program design – best practice, consumer engagement mechanisms and required technology, is urgently needed within the industry. The ADVANCED (Active Demand Value And Consumers Experiences Discovery) project aimed to overcome these barriers through developing actionable frameworks and utilities which would enable residential and C&I consumers to participate in AD, thus contributing to AD’s mass deployment in Europe. The project also quantified the benefits of AD for key stakeholders such as DSOs and its potential contribution to system stability and efficiency, according to different scenarios.

ADVANCED Project

ADVANCED was an EU-funded FP7 project aiming to facilitate mass roll-out of active demand programs across Europe. The project was managed by a multi-stakeholder consortium led by ENEL and including VaasaETT – the lead research partner. The project ran a period of 2 years and was completed at the end of 2014. The project focused on delivering answers on how to solve persistent challenges on active demand and delivering knowledge on key questions such as:

– To assess and compare the case studies to understand how scaling up from pilots to real implementation

– To reveal the benefits of AD for the key stakeholders

– To analyse inherent impacts on the electricity system considering its potential contribution to system stability and efficiency